Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Being Here, Now, in This Moment.

Sometimes, I hate residency. The long hours, the nights and weekends that I have to spend by myself, the inability to plan anything, the difficulty in explaining to people why I can't commit to things ahead of time.

But it doesn't matter if I love or hate it, because it's just life right now.

Sometimes, I'm thankful for residency. I'm thankful for the city it brought us to, for the friends I would have never met otherwise. I'm thankful that my life partner is getting to do exactly what he wants to do with his life, I'm thankful for all the ways it's made me grow as a person.

But it doesn't matter if I love or hate it, it's still just life right now.

It's still just life. It still passes 24 hours at a time. Good days and bad days alike, hateful days and thankful days just the same.

When Chris was nearing med-school graduation and we were nearing becoming parents, we sat down and talked about the next step. We didn't know where we'd be moving yet, or what life would look like with him in residency with a baby in the mix. But we decided that whatever the answer was, we were going to treat life like life.

By that, I mean that we were going to just live life like normal people, not count down to the next step, or view each month or year as a phase. Because 1) That'll drive you crazy, and 2) It will make you miss out on a lot of good, too.

It's not always easy to just live in the now, to view stressful situations as just another part of life, to choose to just live and enjoy the day to the fullest. And by not easy, I mean I fail at it at least once a week. But I'm working on it.

I'm working on it because if I was busy counting down for the hard seasons to be over, I might have missed out on how some of the hard days were sunny and warm and perfect for spending by the pool and hey, actually pretty good days. If I was busy wishing time by faster I might have missed how much a gift it is to get to spend so much time with Jack, or how residency friendships are actually pretty great.

I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this.

If you're busy counting down the days until you can leave your job, you might miss out on enjoying the good things. Maybe your schedule is flexible or your co-workers are great or some other small thing that you don't yet know you'll miss at your next job, but you will. Don't miss out on enjoying it right now.

If you're busy wishing time away so you can finally move out of your tiny apartment, you might miss out on how great the view of the sunrise is out your window, or how easy your commute is, or how many of your favorite food places deliver to you.

If you're busy counting down until you finally graduate or finally get married or finally have a baby or finally have another baby or finally land your dream job or finally save enough for a vacation or finally pay off your loans or finally settle down...you will miss so much good in between. Good days in between the bad ones, good months in between the hard ones, good years that are disguised as tough ones.

I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this. So let's work on it together.

Let's work on being here, now, in this moment. Good or bad, hard or easy, loved or hated.

Because, after all, it's still just life right now. And life is worth living.

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I’m an eternal optimist who loves words and writing more than most things in life. I overuse emojis and know the lyrics to an embarrassing number of rap songs. And I think life is so good, it's worth writing about.

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